


Danse Macabre

by fiveyaaas



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Blood and Injury, Child Abuse, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Masturbation, Mental Health Issues, Murder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vomiting, please read all tags!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:35:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27381304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/pseuds/fiveyaaas
Summary: When Five returns on the day of Reginald’s funeral, he finds all of his family together, except for one member. Asking where Vanya is, he gets blank stares.[Written for Fiveya Week, Day 3: Childhood]
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 33
Kudos: 223
Collections: fiveya week (round 2)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soitgoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soitgoes/gifts), [CarpeDiemForLife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarpeDiemForLife/gifts), [msouma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msouma/gifts).



> Please read all the tags on this fic!! All triggers I could think to tag I added, but please be cautious before you read!! If there are any tags anybody reading think need to be added as well, please tell me!! However, if you are bothered by any of the warnings/tags at all, please just don’t read this fic!!! 
> 
> Dedicating this to soitgoes, CarpeDiemForLife, and msouma, who all appreciate angsty fics! You are all so wonderful to talk to, and I am so happy to have you as friends! Thank you all so much for always being willing to talk and checking in on me. You are all so appreciated💕💕💕🥰🥰🥰

When she was fourteen years old, Father’s butler gave her a gift- a small music box that she could wind up and once she wound it up, for a few moments in time, she would be blessed with the melody. She had never gotten a gift before, and, when Pogo came to Home, when she refused to eat any of the food Father had given all week and her bones showed stark against her skin, she was perplexed at the gesture. 

“Sound,” Pogo told her gently. “Sound will make it less scary.” 

“I’m not scared,” she said, but her voice came out as weak. It was the malnourishment, she knew. She was  _ not  _ scared, and soon she’d come out of Home. “I like Home.” 

Mother made her call the cage Home, saying that then it would feel like one. 

It hadn’t worked. 

“It  _ is _ a scary place, Miss Vanya. I would not judge you for being scared of it,” Pogo told her, gathering his hands into hers as he kneeled down on the floor next to her. “You are allowed to  _ feel.” _

Vanya set her jaw, staring stubbornly ahead of herself and refusing to take his gift. “Feeling is what got me here.” 

Pogo sighed, lightly touching the music box despite her looking resolutely away from it. “When you wind it up, Miss Vanya, you can always have sound. If only for just a little bit. Your mother and I are only capable of coming by at meal times, and sometimes it might help a little to have this.”

When she refused to respond, Pogo left her alone in Home. 

The music box stared up at her accusingly, and she looked around Home. Nobody had been there to see her wind it up anyways. Slowly,  _ slowly  _ she touched the box. Setting her jaw, she wound it up. 

The vaguely unsettling and distorted music started to play. She had heard this song before, and she knew the lyrics, even.

She closed her eyes and imagined the words in her mind.

_ “You are my sunshine, _

_ My only sunshine. _

_ You make me happy,  _

_ When skies are gray.  _

_ You’ll never know, dear, _

_ How much I love you, _

_ Please don’t take my sunshine away.”  _

Her stomach flipped. The stew she ate for lunch came back up, and she retched it out against the metallic floor. She should have been more careful. If she got sick on the floor, it could be hours before it was cleaned up, and the last time she had slipped in her own vomit, she’d had to wait for hours before Mother came down and took her to the showers to clean herself. 

She couldn’t help the way her stomach recoiled, though. 

Of all the songs it could have been, it was a song that described the outdoors. 

Vanya would have loved to see gray skies, just as much as sunshine. She would have just loved to see the sky in general. 

She had not left Home since Five had left. How lovely it would be to have his power- he had the ability to go wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. How lucky he was. 

She supposed if Five had been rumored to stand still and not fight this as she had, he wouldn’t have been able to leave either. 

Vanya grabbed the music box, and she threw it against the spikes on the wall and screamed until her throat felt like it may bleed. Then she lay down against the rancid smelling floor and wished that she could run away like he did.

* * *

“Hello, dear,” Mother told her, holding up a thermometer. “I am here to check your vitals. It will only take a moment.”

“Mom,” Vanya said, hoping she would answer the question she had. “How old am I?” 

She smiled, “You’re sixteen years old, dear.”

“How long have I been here?” Vanya asked, looking down at her bloodied nails where she had started chewing them. Without her violin, she struggled with what to do with her hands. She had realized at one point that when she gnawed down the nails, if she ripped off the skin by them, she could feel something for a second besides numbness. Physical feelings and emotional feelings, she knew, were not entirely congruous to one another, but, in a place, where life was only about survival, they melded together. 

“How long have you been  _ Home?”  _ Mother’s voice chided her gently, emphasizing the word with a smile.

“Yes, how long have I been  _ Home?” _ Vanya repeated, emphasizing the word with a sneer. 

“It will be three years next month,” Mother said, seemingly choosing not to take note of Vanya’s irritation. 

“Will Father be visiting me any time?” Vanya asked, opening her mouth up so Mother could place the thermometer under her tongue. 

“Your father is a very busy man, Vanya,” Mother told her, smiling her Stepford smile. 

“Mom, do you even love me?” Vanya asked. She wondered sometimes if an android could love anything. Yes, she had been programmed to do so, but could she really  _ feel  _ anything? 

Mother blinked in confusion, face screwing up like her system was glitching. “Are you hungry, dear?” 

Vanya looked down at her bitten down nails, not wanting to meet Mother’s gaze. “I’m okay, Mom.” 

Nothing could love her. If anything loved her, she wouldn’t be locked in Home. 

“Alright, sweetie. I’ll be back tomorrow, then. Get some rest, okay?” 

Vanya nodded, hoping Mother would leave before the tears fell.

* * *

Was there a storm far above her? 

Vanya doesn’t know if it’s a hallucination when she hears the storms. She knows that Five standing beside her  _ is  _ a hallucination. He’s been preserved in a thirteen year old body, unable to grow older within the confines of her mind. 

“Is it storming, Five?” Vanya asked him. “Can you check?”

He sighed, sitting down beside where she had gotten sick earlier. If he were really there, he’d twist his face up in disgust. As it was, he just knelt down beside her. 

Vanya knew she was losing her mind. She  _ knew  _ he was a hallucination. So many times when she read about people losing their minds, they had never  _ known  _ the hallucinations weren’t real. Vanya was sure that happened for some people, but she was reasonable. She knew Five would not be here, could pick up on the subtle details of why he was not here. 

“Home makes it hard to use my powers,” Five told her, looking at her significantly. 

“Five, I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me,” Vanya reminded him. They’d had this conversation many times over. Usually, he got pissed off and started screaming and then he would disappear in a flash of blue. 

“You  _ know,  _ V,” he urged, trying to take her hand. She flinched away from him. She didn’t want to feel proof that he wasn’t real. 

“I don’t,” Vanya told him weakly. 

“You’re scared of storms, aren’t you?” Five noted to her, wringing his hands together. 

“I’m not scared of storms,” Vanya shrugged. “I’m scared that the house will get wrecked, and I’ll have been left behind in the pieces.”

“That’s probably a valid concern.”

“Are you dead?”

Five scowled. 

“Tell me.”

He shook his head, reading her face. “I can’t.”

Vanya nodded, closing her eyes and laying back. 

“V?”

She didn’t open her eyes, and he sighed loudly and impatiently. 

“I don’t wanna fight tonight, V,” Five said quietly. 

She stayed resolutely silent. 

Five cleared his throat, “Before you say anything, just know I’m counting on the fact that nobody can hear me but you right now.” 

Vanya felt her heart pick up. She was holding something in her hands, and she wondered if it was Five’s own hands. They were callused if that were the case. 

_ “The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping,”  _ Five sang softly. She wouldn’t open her eyes; she knew he would go away if she did. Five continued, shakily,  _ “I dreamed I held you in my arms.” _

Vanya felt the tears falling down her cheeks. It seemed there was a layer of grime coating her skin these days. When she was given time to shower, her skin never became clean, no matter how roughly she scrubbed against it. She got three minutes of shower, anyways, so she knew she would never manage to feel truly clean in that time under the spittle of the showerhead against her skin. Oftentimes, it felt like the showerhead was trying to yell at her, and she wanted to tell it that she didn’t understand what it was saying. 

_ “But when I woke, dear, I was mistaken,”  _ Five’s voice held a sadness unbefitting of the thirteen years old he appeared.  _ “So I hung my head and I cried.” _

His hands were too rough, too cold, too metallic. Was it Mother, then? Was it Mother, trying to sing to her? 

Vanya started screaming again, but nobody heard her.

* * *

“You turned 21 today,” Pogo said, sitting down beside her. 

Vanya didn’t speak to him. It was getting harder now for that. It wasn’t that she didn’t know  _ how,  _ but Vanya found that when she screamed enough without an answer, wanting to speak at all became  _ daunting.  _

Pogo cleared his throat, knowing this. He placed a few pillows and blankets down, replacing the ones she had been using the past month. Vanya had gotten blood on them, somehow, and they had told her they would get her new ones when they came back. 

“Miss Grace will be down shortly. She made cupcakes for each of you, and there’s been quite a surplus, so you may very well be eating many.” 

Vanya studied her hands, trying to open her mouth to speak but finding that it had been sealed shut with a needle and thread. She started picking at the threads, ripping off the skin from her lips as she did, but then Mother came along. 

“Oh, Vanya,” Mother chided. “We will have to get you some lip balm, dear. You need to stop picking at your lips, okay?”

Vanya tried to nod, but the thread had formed a gossamer web around her face and she couldn’t manage the movement. It would wind up, and she’d become a puppet. Maybe it would tire of her silence, put a voice box inside of her and pull the string so she could mimic polite conversation. Maybe it would form enough phrases within her that she could be like Mother and become something close to human again.

Mother offered her a cupcake, and the puppeteer above her took pity on her growling stomach, and she reached out and took it into her wooden hands. 

“Happy birthday, Vanya,” Mother told her as her teeth sank into the sugary treat. Dark chocolate cake coated with chocolate chips and a coffee-like frosting. They weren’t allowed caffeine most of the time, so it was a welcome treat. 

If she had been ordered to do so, she would have said thank you. Nobody asked her, for they had already gone.

* * *

By the age of 22, Vanya was not sure if she thought of herself as an adult or a child. Her skin was almost purple against the ivory from lack of sun, and when she tried to speak, her words struggled to come. She didn’t know much about life out of captivity now, and she didn’t ask anymore. Occasionally, she’d see her thirteen year old brother staring urgently at her, gesturing wildly, but she didn’t reach for him anymore. His hands would be cold and metallic and rough if she clasped them, and she didn’t feel she wanted to confirm her certainty. 

There would be times when she was very scared, late in the night, when she was still not entirely conscious, when she wasn’t sure if she was in nightmares or awake, when she was certain nobody could see her reach for her brother, that she would. She would admit that to no one, and she wondered sometimes if that was why she stayed silent, out of guilt for knowing where Five was and not telling anyone about it. Five, she told herself, was a fragment of her mind, and he wouldn’t be seen by the others. 

When she’d clasp his hand, he’d sing to her again. It was only when they touched that her brother would sing to her, and it was only when her strings had come undone and she was left fragile that she would need to hear it. 

She closed her eyes. Maybe Five understood how she felt, not knowing who he was. He’d been preserved in age. She didn’t know if this was the same for her, had not looked in a mirror. The most she saw of her reflection was in the glistening metal showerhead, and she didn’t know whether or not she had changed much or if she had remained stagnant as he had. Vanya wondered if she looked pitiful enough if Five would talk to her. He had grown frustrated by her lack of response, so he didn’t speak much at all anymore. 

Vanya was vulnerable, so she reached out for his hand again. 

He sang the song again, but the words that resonated were the ones urging her to speak.  _ “I'll always love you and make you happy,”  _ his voice held concern as he sang. He squeezed her palm, adding,  _ “If you will only say the same.”  _

The threads unravelled around her mouth, and she would have spoken, had the string not sunk down her throat as her mouth opened up. The needle cut the roof of her mouth, and she was unable to let words come out. 

Five could not love her or make her happy because she could not even say the words.

* * *

Mother was growing distressed at her inability to speak, filling her with promises of what would happen if she did. One day, she told Vanya that if she spoke, she’d take her out of Home. 

_ ‘But Home is what I know,’  _ Vanya would tell her if the puppeteer deigned to let her speak.  _ ‘Home is all I have. It is all you have given me, and I can’t let it be taken away as well.’ _

There was another day that Father visited, and Vanya flinched away from him as he did. 

“Number Seven,” he barked. “You will stop this insolent behavior at once.”

Her finger closed around something cold and metallic and rough, and she knew that Five was beside her. He didn’t speak as she held onto his hand, but he stared resolutely at Father, recoiling in disdain when Reginald leaned forward and spat, “You will  _ speak,  _ or you will never leave.”

“That’s what she wants,” Five said with a note of boredom, picking his nails beside her. “I don’t agree, trust me, but she already decided a while ago.”

“You are trained in seven languages,” Reginald said, crouching down a little, forcing her to meet his eyes. 

She was a wooden thing. If she spoke, she’d lie, and her nose would grow too long. 

“You are perfectly capable of speaking in at least one,” Reginald continued. 

Would she run from her master? What did it mean, that she was the bad one, when she was just a puppet come to life? 

“If you do not speak at once, you will lose all privileges to hygiene.”

Or was it that she had once been alive, and she was becoming something else now? Was she coated in the amber of time like her brother beside her? Or was she a little doll, once capable of her mouth being opened up, but having lost it?

Reginald left, and she lost her privileges to hygiene.

It was okay, she wasn’t a real thing, anyways.

* * *

She pulled at his fingers until he sang, and then she closed her eyes and waited to be put in a box, packaged up, and delivered to somebody else. 


	2. Chapter 2

He knew of the multiverse. He knew that there was a version of himself that likely died in the apocalypse, knew that there was a version of himself that left much sooner, knew that there was a version of himself that never left home at all, and knew that there was a version of himself that left much later. 

The Handler found him when he was 29, and he was desperate to go home and accepted immediately. He put bullets in a multitude of people, and then he put a multitude of bullets in the Handler. He went home at thirty six, and then he destroyed the stolen briefcase as he landed, the last remaining reminder of an organization he’d burned to the ground. He grabbed a knife and unnecessarily cut out trackers from his skin until he was coated in his own blood, and then he walked to his childhood home. 

They were confused when they saw him, naturally, and he supposed it made sense, considering he’d landed on the day of their supposed father’s funeral. He simply shrugged it off and counted his siblings, telling them they needed to hear something vital. 

Number One. Luther. He was large, in a way that betrayed something had gone very wrong. He was covered, in a way that betrayed he did not like it. 

Number Two. Diego. He spoke in barbs and dressed in black and wanted to fight. He was exactly the same as when Five had left him. 

Number Three. Allison. She was dressed inappropriately for a funeral and feigning concern. She was entirely the same and entirely different. 

Number Four. Klaus. He was bored yet amused, a walking contradiction. Five did not bother trying to figure him out. 

Number Six. Ben. He watched Five with confusion, like he could not believe he had returned or like he could not believe that he was really him. Five did not know the answer to the latter. 

Number Seven. Vanya. Gone. 

Gone, gone,  _ gone.  _

“Where’s Vanya?” Five asked. 

They blinked. 

“Where’s Vanya?” Five repeated. 

They opened their mouths. 

_ “Where the fuck is our sister?”  _

They did not know, and they did not care. 

This… did not surprise him. 

“You didn’t even bother to tell her about his funeral?” He snapped. “You couldn’t  _ deign _ to tell her about-“

“Who is Vanya?” Luther asked him, and the next thing Five remembered after was falling to his knees, clutching his chest.

* * *

He searched through Reginald’s office, searched through the tapes, searched through anything and everything until he realized he’d thrown his fist against the old man’s desk and patches of blue rested against the dried streaks of red on his knuckles. 

Pogo was behind him. Five’s back stiffened, grabbing a letter opener off the desk and walking to the chimp, resting it against his throat. “You know something,” Five said, and it was his voice shaking in anger, not in fear for sweet Vanya. He pressed down enough that if the chimp were human, he’d have drawn blood. Quitely, he spoke, “Tell me what you know.” 

“We were asked to never share this information.”

Five sneered. “You think that he’s going to climb out of Hell to admonish you?”

Pogo glanced down. ”Grace was not given a standing order to feed her, and she’s already been malfunction you see-“

He cut him off, “Is she dead?”

Pogo’s lips formed a thin line. Instead of saying anything, he shook his head. 

“Then where is she?”

* * *

The smell was the first thing he noticed. He gagged, but he kept walking forward, knowing that if he didn’t she’d be there longer if he waited at all. 

There were some people at the Commission that enjoyed their jobs. Five had not been one of them, but there were plenty of sadistic fucks that heard “kill for a living” and signed up. 

He suspected the room that he walked into would have made  _ them  _ disgusted. 

“Vanya,” Five croaked. She didn’t move. She was barely clothed, and he was pretty certain he could count all of the bones in her body. 

He tripped over his feet, reaching for her and praying that she wasn’t-

She stared up at him, blinking. He breathed a sigh of relief. 

“I’m getting you out of here,” he promised, forcing his voice to be as gentle as he could possibly make it, even though he knew he must have sounded at least the slightest bit horrified. “I’m going to teleport, so you may feel a little dizzy, okay?”

She didn’t respond, so he scooped up her body and teleported her upstairs. 

It was a mistake. He should have carried her up the stairs. She was already malnourished, already barely conscious. The second they reached the ground floor, she had passed out.

* * *

The others were surrounding him, watching him coax water to her lips. Grace had done all that she could, and, at the very least, she was conscious. He kept barking out questions to her, realizing that she had gone mute at one point. He was well-aware that there wasn’t anything physically wrong, imagined it was likely a combination of not speaking for long periods of times and just seeing no purpose to speaking. 

“You don’t have to speak,” he murmured as he started to press her lips to the glass again. 

“She needs to bathe,” Ben said behind him, still disbelieving that he had another sister. Five imagined that it was a rumor that did it, considering the way that Allison had stopped speaking and started sobbing upon seeing Vanya. As much as Five wanted to blame her, it was clear that this had happened a  _ very  _ long time ago, that she would have shoved this memory down and forced herself to forget out of helplessness in keeping Vanya safe. It was not Allison that had done this to her. 

Still, when he saw Allison crying, he didn’t say a word. When he heard her trying to speak, he forced himself not to hurt her. 

Five turned around to Ben, acknowledging him, for he wasn’t saying anything completely untrue. She did need to bathe, or she’d get sick. Ben was saying it out of a kindness, he was pretty sure. “I know that,” he said softly, moving away from Vanya for only a second. As soon as he did though, she made a pained noise, and he snapped his gaze back to her. 

“Can you speak again?” Five asked her, reaching for her grimy hand. She stared blankly at him, and he considered moving away to force her to speak. Immediately after having the thought, he dismissed it. It would do nothing to help her. 

“Has she been able to bathe herself?” Five asked Grace. She looked confused by the question, and he realized she was apparently malfunctioning on top of everything else. He wanted to hit something. It would do absolutely nothing except maybe make him feel a little pain, but he would find it grounding to have pain right now. 

“You said that you needed to tell us something important,” Luther said. 

The apocalypse. Doomsday. Eight days from now.

“The world ends in eight days,” Five told him, not offering further explanation as he watched the way Vanya eyed the ice in the water cup, like focusing on one thing helped. He remembered that she was supposedly drugged from talking to Grace enough. Still, though, he imagined if she had been fed, she wouldn’t have gotten her medication.

His stomach sunk. That wasn’t necessarily true. Pogo had just said Grace didn’t have a standing order to  _ feed  _ her. He had never said anything about drugging her.

He wondered briefly if killing Pogo would upset Vanya. 

“What do you mean the world ends in eight days?” Luther asked. 

Five was barely paying attention. Wordlessly, he handed him the glass eye and said, “We have to solve it.”

They all started asking him questions, and he listened to Vanya’s heart rate pick up on the monitor as they all started speaking at once. He set up a hand, silencing them, quietly saying, “All we have is that eye. We are going to have to solve it before the time is up, and, if not, we will all die. And if any of you even  _ think  _ about arguing, remember that you  _ forced  _ Vanya to never have a chance at life in the first place, and maybe if we fix this shit, she can.”

He expected them to argue, but he figured the sight of her was enough. 

* * *

When Five told her that Grace would be taking her to bathe, she gripped his arm so tightly that she drew blood. 

“Would you prefer All-“

She made another noise, and he could figure out why. Even if he could easily understand that Allison wouldn’t have known better when she’d gotten the order, it would make sense for her to be reluctant to trust her anyways. Hell, depending on how young Vanya had been when she’d been put inside of that entrapment, she likely would have at least thought a few times that she was put there simply because she didn’t like her. It was as good a guess as any, he supposed. There wasn’t any evidence to explain why else she’d been there. 

“You’re going to need to bathe,” Five told her, shaking off his thoughts. It wasn’t going to do anything to think about  _ why _ ; he just had to take care of her. “Can you hold yourself up?”

She glared at him, which made him frown. 

“I don’t mind carrying you, but I feel like it’d be pretty fucked up for me to  _ bathe _ you.”

Vanya blinked, laying back against the pillows. 

He had a thought upon seeing the movement of her eyes. “Blink three times if you’re okay with Grace bathing you.”

She stared blankly ahead. 

“Blink three times if you’re okay with Allison bathing you.”

Five sighed as she continued staring ahead.

“Blink three times if you can do it yourself.”

Nothing.

It wasn’t like she was going to get better without being clean. There was vomit on her body, and he could see cuts all over her palms, waiting for an infection-

“Alright, _fine,_ blink three times if you’re okay with me-“

She blinked three times before he could even finish the sentence, and he wondered if maybe he actually had died in the apocalypse and was atoning for any of the sins he committed. Maybe it was just that she trusted him because he’d been the only one not present for this torment, and he _was_ glad that she could trust _somebody._ However, he had to save the entire world with the help of the others, and he didn’t have time to take care of her the way she would need. 

But the thought of leaving her behind… it didn’t sit well with him. Especially if he was the only one she trusted to help her. 

“I’m going to lift you up, but I’m not going to teleport again, okay?” 

Her hands reached out when he was by her side, wrapping around him. It wasn’t exactly hugging; she was just trying to balance herself in his arms. Five kind of wished he could get a hug, though, so he pretended it wasn’t out of necessity and hoped she wouldn’t be angry that he did. 

As soon as they got to the bathroom, she glanced at the mirror in confusion. Her hand reached out, touching her reflection. They stayed in front of the mirror for a few moments, and he knew that it was because he was reluctant to undress her. He wouldn’t have even floated the idea if she wasn’t so insistent that nobody else help. When she kept glancing to the bathtub instead of her reflection though, he sighed and set her on the counter, taking off her clothes and glancing up with each article to make sure she was fine, using the blinking method, which she’d grown accustomed to at this point.

It would be horribly depressing if he stopped the world from ending, and he spent the rest of his life communicating with Vanya through him speaking and her blinking. 

There was something nice about grumbling to her about the others while he bathed her, though. She watched him with eyes focused enough that he was certain she was listening in. Eventually, he confessed where exactly he’d been all this time, shaking as he started to talk about the Commission. 

Vanya’s hand had gently closed over his forearm, and he smiled ruefully at her. “You’ve been through shit too. I’m sorry, V.” Her eyes filled with silent tears, and he apologized again, weakly. 

The water had grown cold by the time he’d washed her hair and gotten her completely clean. She leaned against him as he lifted her from the tub, flicking the drain before grabbing a towel to dry her. Allison had given him flannel pajamas to dress her in, ones much too large for Vanya’s petite frame, yes, but he decided ultimately to forgive her. Clearly, this was a trauma that both she and Vanya had gone through, and the only two he could bring himself to blame were Pogo and Reginald. Grace was an android; she couldn’t have said no to any of this. Pogo, though, had stood idly by while it happened. 

After he’d tucked Vanya into his own bed, figuring she could sleep a while, he started to walk away. The panicked noise that emitted from her mouth made him stop dead in his tracks. 

He could walk away. To see if she spoke.

But it would be wrong. So wrong. 

“I won’t leave,” he said finally, walking back to his bed and laying down on top of the covers beside her. Clearly predicting that he would leave the second she fell asleep, she shoved the blankets over him, tucking herself to his side almost recalcitrantly. He sighed, loudly. 

But then her arms were really wrapping around him, really hugging him, and he couldn’t argue any longer. His arms closed around her in turn, and he murmured softly to her until she fell asleep in them. 

By the time, Luther came to his room, asking for clarifications in regards to the apocalypse, Five had already made his choice. 

“I will tell you everything you want to know, answer any questions,” he made a point to whisper, not jostling Vanya at all. “But she needs me, Luther. And I can’t leave her.”

“Even if it meant the world was ending?”

Five didn’t say anything. 

It was answer enough.

* * *

“I feel like I’ve become some sort of nihilist,” Five told Vanya after he’d made her breakfast a day and a half later. His cooking skills were nothing special, but she ate the (all burnt) eggs, bacon, and toast without complaint. She sipped at her coffee with a pinched expression, so he grabbed cream and sugar, handing them directly to her to see how she took it and he’d know for next time. “I have been planning to solve the apocalypse for nearly fifty years, but it’s honestly relieving to not give a single shit about the earth.”

Vanya frowned at him, and he amended guiltily, “I don’t actually not give a single shit, but I don’t want to leave you alone. Not like this.”

She ate a piece of bacon, chewing loudly, and he started to wonder if Delores had been a better conversationalist. “You know, it would be really great if you talked. Our conversations could be two-sided. How great would  _ that  _ be.”

Her eyebrows raised dubiously. “Okay, yeah,” he admitted. “I know that I was bad about letting you speak too when I was younger, but it would be different now. I’d make sure of that. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you more, V.”

He glanced down at the table, ashamed. “If I had, none of this would have happened, would it? You’d be safe. I wouldn’t have let this happen to you, ever. I feel so stupid for not forcing you to go with me. Is that bad? That I’d rather you have been in that wasteland than here? At least there were plenty of places to go, you wouldn’t have been trapped in such a small space.”

She grabbed his hand again. Though she hadn’t said a single word, she’d touched him plenty. Five was pretty sure that when she was ready to speak, it’d be to him. Really, he shouldn’t be pressuring her, but it scares him, seeing her so unreactive. This was his best friend. He used to go to her when he needed to talk about anything, and, God, he wished he had listened to her more. Maybe( then, she would find it worth it to speak. 

But, no, it was not him. It was what she’d been through. Physically, there was nothing blocking her from being able to speak. Other than malnourishment and the cuts on her hands, there was not really much wrong with her physically. Five had bandaged her hands when she had woken up in the middle of the night, and his eyes had snapped open, trying to find something to make her focus while her panic attack came. 

Grace had told him to give her the pills when she had a panic attack, but she’d been incapable of providing any information regarding what the medicine was for or who had prescribed them. After Vanya finished eating, he would call any psychiatrists able to visit the home, already prepared to bribe or threaten as need be. She’d cocked her head to the side in confusion when he’d explained a doctor would come to her, but he refused to let anybody in there to be responsible with that. 

“There are technically doctors with the Commission,” Five mentioned, remembering his last resort option. “But I’m going to find you somebody trustworthy here. If I use anybody from the Commission, I won’t leave you alone with them, I promise. I don’t even have to leave if it’s a doctor that I know is trustworthy. I’ll only leave you alone for it if it makes you more comfortable.”

She was eyeing the bacon on his own plate, and he quickly pushed his plate her way. “Be careful,” Five reminded her. “You’re not used to eating much. Eat as much as you want, but try not to make yourself sick, okay?” Vanya yawned, gnawing off a bite of toast. “If you’re tired, you’re welcome to go to sleep, you know.” 

She didn’t respond, so he gulped down the rest of his coffee, blinking over to the pot to get more but keeping his eyes on her. He lifted up the pot. “Do you want any more?” She pointed to the sink, and he nodded, grabbing a cup of water for her. “They’re trying to locate the owner of the eye I told you about. Allison went to the company that manufactured it, and she’ll-“

He cut himself off, worrying what would happen if he’d talked candidly about Allison’s powers to her. “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” he added finally, handing her the cup of water and ignoring the wave of nausea that rolled over him. 

There was a thought, that kept persisting, any time he contemplated focusing on the end of the world. If he was unable to solve it, and he’d left her behind… Vanya’s last days would have been spent thinking herself completely alone. 

And he couldn’t leave her behind. He saw how it had looked at the end. It would have been scary for her, and knowing that she likely spent the first timeline, the one where he’d landed in the apocalypse, in between those walls. Maybe she’d cried out, begging them all to help her while the walls had caved in. 

“Have I ever told you that there were points where I’d wished I’d been ordinary too?” As she sat straighter in her chair, swallowing the last of the food he’d given her and then gulping down the water, he took that as a sign she wasn’t upset with the topic, something that was vexing to him. Though he supposed being ordinary was a lot less awful in comparison to what all she had been through. He continued, shaking himself mentally, “I wouldn’t have ever  _ known  _ to be worried, had I been ordinary. And maybe I would have been more like you.”

He grimaced, “Is it selfish to talk about myself right now? I probably shouldn’t do that.” With Delores, he’d always been  _ aware  _ that talking to her was always fine, that it would never hurt her feelings or be insensitive to do so. The concept that he’d hurt Vanya more by burdening her with his own issues made him wish he was the one who wouldn’t speak. Using her as a coping skill wasn’t the same, and he really shouldn’t do it.

“I’m going to make some calls,” he told her after a few minutes of silence. He reached for her hand, walking with her to where the phonebook and a telephone would be. Vanya crossed her arms over her chest, shivering, and he shrugged off his coat, lifting her up and setting her on the counter before he placed it on her shoulders. She wrapped it tightly around herself, rocking back and forth, and he drummed his fingers over knee absentmindedly while he flipped through the yellow pages. 

Ideally, he could find somebody who could come to the house immediately. He’d take her to an office if he had to, but time was of the essence. Considering the fact that he had an inheritance from a billionaire and didn’t have enough morals to  _ not  _ threaten a doctor if they tried to make him wait, he wasn’t too concerned that he would. 

Vanya ended up falling asleep a few minutes after he’d hopped onto the counter beside her, trying to explain to a confused receptionist that they’d be paying completely and insurance wasn’t a problem. As she dozed against his shoulder, he inhaled quickly, realizing he was channeling a very Reginald energy and apologizing to the receptionist quickly. The man sounded dazed as he told him there had actually been a cancellation and if they got there in the next thirty minutes. 

Five was already shaking Vanya awake, feeling a little guilty but needing to solve the issue of the medicine as soon as possible. “Could you give me the latitude and longitude of your equation to the fourth decimal?” Five asked, deciding Vanya wearing pajamas in this state would be fine. It wasn’t like they’d hospitalize her for what she was wearing. When the receptionist stammered out the exact address instead, Five pursed his lips but thanked him, figuring he was somewhat helpful and also that screaming to a stranger in front of Vanya might make her scared. 

“Okay,” he said, hanging up the phone. “I’m taking you to a doctor. Blink three times if it’s okay to teleport.”

She didn’t move her eyes, and he nodded, understanding. “Alright, that’s fine, I’ll drive there.”

He let her lean against him as he found the keys and set her in the passenger seat. There were likely quite a few traffic laws that he broke in the process to get her to the doctor, but they made it on time. 

Five should have never let himself feel the faintest bit of hope. When the doctor told him that the drug she was on didn’t exist on any FDA-approved list (or approved of in any other country), he told himself to lose all hope he’d had so far and to ignore all he had later.

But then she spoke again.

It was three days after the appointment. The doctor was tapering her off the pills (and, at that point, threatening had happened, due to the fact that the doctor had almost immediately tried to put her under medical supervision), having an appointment with her each day with her not speaking at all. He could see the nervous way the doctor watched him, but she wisely said nothing at all. 

Her voice had called out when he’d started to get up to talk to Luther, who’d poked his head into Five’s room for clarification on something. She had barely even moved at all when he disentangled from her to talk to him, but then she was asking him not to leave, voice hoarse from disuse. 

His first assumption, frankly, had been that he’d hallucinated it, having had very little ability to rest when he kept waking up to check on her, but then she spoke again, more insistently. 

She was saying his name. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be another WIP, and I apologize!! I know I have so many, but I am determined to work on all the WIPs I have after Fiveya week is over!!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has waited patiently for an update!!! This is a shorter fic, only five chapters, so we’re now 60% of the way through!!!
> 
> Dedicating this specific chapter to Chevalier_Barthelemy because having a few accountability buddies is literally the only way I’m getting all my WIPs knocked out (especially when I have a few more coming out soon... please don’t hate me, readers 😔) 
> 
> I am about to update the tags a little too. Again, if any of the tags unsettle you at all, I recommend you not finish this fic!!! I don’t want to ever make people feel uncomfortable with my writing!!!💕💕

_ “Five.”  _

Part of Vanya wondered if he was real. How could he possibly be real? 

But she knew he was. 

He wasn’t still young, like she’d always seen him over the years. When she touched his hands, they were warm- still rough, but in a much more human way. Any opportunity she got, she touched him, needing the reassurance that he was actually there. Five hadn’t commented on her need for touch, hadn’t yet been upset when she curled up to him before she went to bed. 

It had been him getting out of bed that prompted her to cut the strings against her lips, deciding to defy the person controlling her just this once. 

When she spoke, Five snapped something to the person at the other side of the door before he closed the door abruptly. Vanya glanced up at him, and, before she knew what was happening, he was hugging her to his chest. 

“Are you ready to speak again, V?”

She shook her head, but it was a much more verbal response than she’d given him the entire time he’d come back, save for her attempts at saying his name. 

“That’s okay,” he mumbled, but his tone was dejected. She glanced away, biting her lip, feeling guilt for not being able to be enough for him. He watched silently for a few moments, seeing her features scrunch up and eyes start to water despite her intention not to cry. They hadn’t quite spilled over yet, and she knew the second they did she wouldn’t be able to stop. “I understand it if you are incapable of speaking, I do. Take as much time as you need. I’m waiting for you, but, if you never spoke a single word again and it was easier, I would understand.”

Vanya zoned in on the walls, wondering if Five would think she was stupid if she did speak. There wasn’t really even a life she had lived in H-

“Vanya, are you okay?”

He must have picked up on the way the word in her mind had almost made her vomit, reaching over to her and asking her what was wrong. 

It was the question that did it- such a simple thing, but it was enough to make her start to sob. She was right; as soon as it started, it didn’t stop. Five weakly pulled her close, stroking her hair in a coaxing manner, murmuring words that she couldn’t pick out. Vanya couldn’t tell if she was thinking a million things or not a thing at all. 

“I’m here for you,” Five promised. “Whatever you’re worried about, it won’t happen again.”

“They made me call it home.” She said it so quietly that she didn’t think he would have possibly been able to hear it, but his grip tightened on her. 

“You’ll never go back there ever again, Vanya.” His voice was firm, without a trace of humor. “I won’t let you be put in there ever again, and if anybody tried, I’d kill them.” She knew that he would, and it scared her how easily he said it. When he’d told her that he had become an assassin, she’d been shocked, remembering the boy she knew. Five hadn’t ever been the kindest person in the world, but he’d also never been someone she could ever imagine killing people so easily, so clinically, so  _ mechanically.  _ It was Five, though, and she never would judge him for anything. 

It scared her more that he’d been so alone too. She touched his arm, not looking up at him. Thinking it was because she was still upset about Home, he told her, “Vanya, if I got us an apartment, outside of this place… would it help? I'm willing to do whatever it takes to help you, and I know that it has to be still awful just being  _ near  _ that. We could live somewhere where you’d feel safer that’s still in the city for right now.”

She frowned, not sure if he could even get them a place. Did he even have any money?

Oddly, he seemed to realize where her thoughts were. “I have a bank account,” he explained. “That I set up in the Commission. Plus the help of a little insider trading, which I trust you won't tell anybody about.” 

His eyes went wide, “I didn’t mean it like-“ He stopped talking when she squeezed his hand, leaning down to kiss the back of it quickly. She could feel his pulse pounding when she cuddled back up to his chest. Oddly, she felt like she could almost  _ hear _ it too, but she chalked it up to the withdrawals she was getting, despite the psychiatrist’s best efforts. Five spoke again, sounding more assured in his time, despite his speeding heartbeat suggesting he was nervous, “We’ll get a place. First thing in the morning, we’ll get you your own clothes too. It might help to have your own things. At least I hope it will, V. If there’s anything you need from me at all, you’re welcome to talk but also writing it down or pointing or whatever else… I’ll figure it out, okay? I’ll take care of you, though, and you don’t have to worry anymore.”

She smiled up at him, feeling weird to do so but wanting to reassure him somehow. Five’s eyes filled with a softness that was entirely incongruous to the life he’d told her he’d lived. It was another moment where it seemed completely unbelievable that Five was what he was, but he wouldn’t lie to her about something like that. When he wrapped his arms around her, laying down beside her, she felt entirely safe. Still, she did think that leaving this place actually might help, and she wasn’t going to argue with him on it, especially when she suspected it may help him too, to not be here. “I’ll take care of you,” Five repeated, moving to where he was spooning her, pressing her up to the wall like he was keeping her from having direct contact with anyone else. 

It felt both protective and possessive, neither of which she minded at all. She was thankful that he wanted her, despite being as broken as she was. And despite his possessiveness, the feeling of helplessness she’d felt for years was starting to drift away more and more with each passing day beside him. Five made her feel safe, but he also let her feel like she was in  _ control.  _

When she fell asleep in her arms, she felt no fear at all.

* * *

The next morning, Five had her eat his bad cooking again. Despite the fact that she was aware he wasn’t talented at cooking at all, she liked eating everything he put in front of her. In the week she’d spent with no food at all, taking pills on an empty stomach, she was pretty certain she lost her picky eating habits. Oatmeal though, she still wouldn’t eat, and Five never tried to force it, just making her whatever else he could find. A part of her thought that he cooked because he didn’t trust Grace not to give her her meds again, even though she was pretty certain he’d started rewiring her when she slept. 

Vanya ate all of her food, looking up to him because he always looked proud when she ate everything. Whether it was for his own ability to take care of her or for her compliance, she didn’t know, but she liked to think it was the former. He  _ was _ helping, and she was thankful for it. 

“We’re gonna go get some new clothes,” he said, settling in beside her and fixing his tie. She realized that he was wearing the same clothes he’d had since he’d landed, and she figured he’d probably want to get himself some new things to wear as well. She stood up, reaching for his arm, and he asked, “Are you okay with teleporting there?”

She nodded, and he beamed at her. Without much thought to it, she told him, “I like it when you smile.” 

Five’s ears tipped red, but his smile only grew. She was still not comfortable talking all the time, but she’d make an attempt for it. Feeling less sluggish after reducing her dose helped it, too, she thought. Maybe part of it had just been that she felt like she’d been underwater from the medicine, and she’d realized there was no purpose to speaking at all. 

“I’ll try to do it more, then,” he mumbled, reaching for her arm and pulling her close to him. They landed outside of a large department store, but she shook her head, not wanting to be around that many people. 

Five shrugged, “We can walk around the town if you’d like, Vanya. When you find somewhere you want to stop, just lead me in that direction.”

She was silently thankful for the opportunity to explore new places, to walk around. The sun above her was welcome as was the complete lack of claustrophobia. All around her was a world she had never really had the opportunity to see before, and she ended up dragging Five into a lot of different stores, none of which were clothing related at all. 

He didn’t comment on this fact ever, even when she dragged him to an ice cream parlor and shared some with him. Five smiled each time she glanced up from shoveling the chocolate-y sweetness into her mouth, probably just happy she wasn’t having any sort of panic attacks upon re-entering the world (outside of the appointments with the psychiatrist.) Vanya was  _ elated  _ to be away from the mansion, though, and she felt the freest she’d ever been. When they finished eating, she dragged him to a little thrift store next door, seeing the clothes inside. 

He raised his brows at her selection, but she was already piling men’s clothes into his hand and he clearly didn’t see it worth whatever protesting he would have made. Once his arms were full, she picked a bunch of clothes at random off the shelf, already pulling off her top and starting to try them on when Five gently grabbed her arm and suggested they use a fitting room. 

Shrugging, she followed him when he went and asked an associate if they had somewhere they could change. The woman handed them a key but told them ‘no funny business’ causing Vanya to feel confused and Five to scowl at the woman. He walked them to the changing room, and she stripped down, reaching for the pile of clothes. Five averted his gaze, but she told him, “Try yours on too.” Her voice had not stopped sounding croaky when she spoke, and she hoped he wasn’t annoyed by it. He frowned at her, but she realized it was just because he was changing in front of her when he slowly started unbuttoning his top. 

Vanya staved off laughter, finding a sweater and skirt from her pile and pushing them on. They were comfortable and still modest from the bagginess of the sweater and the long length of the skirt. She put them on the ‘yes’ pile, tugging at the pullover Five had put on and nodding her affirmation that she liked what he was wearing. Chuckling softly, he added it to his own. 

When they’d gotten enough clothing to wear something new every day of the week, Vanya started exploring the other things in the store, fingers brushing over all of the furniture and knick knacks. When she touched a music box, she stopped breathing. 

Was she in Home again? Was none of this real? Had Five not actually come home to her? Were the walls finally collapsing, causing her to perish alone, to-

“Vanya?”

She glanced up at Five, breathing unsteadily. He looked at what was in her hand. 

“Vanya?” Five repeated, voice filled with concern. 

“They’re going to hurt me, they’re torturing me with this-” It was so easy to speak when she knew that nobody was listening. 

Taking the object from her hand, Five stared straight into her eyes as he hit it against a bookshelf until it was effectively crushed. The thrift store owner came over to yell at him, but he just wordlessly handed her a giant stack of cash that Vanya was pretty certain he’d grabbed from Reginald’s safe. She didn’t think he’d been lying at all about the bank account, so she was pretty sure the only reason Five had used Reginald’s money was some sort of vindictive thing. The lady blinked at what was apparently much more money than was necessary for the purchase, and Five smiled eerily at her, much more of a mocking grimace than what Five had given Vanya. 

Not liking the unsettled feeling in her stomach that his chilliness caused, she dragged him away from the store, clutching the hangers of clothes into her hand. 

“Are you okay?” Five asked, clearly noticing her anxiety. She shrugged, and he raised his brows. For a few moments, he is silent, and then he mumbles guiltily, “Okay destroying that music box was probably not the best reaction, but it was making you sad and it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

She forced down the urge to smile. Clearly, he didn’t realize why she actually had gotten upset. 

“I’m going to get us a hotel while we look for an apartment, since I’m assuming you’d get upset if I did the speediest method of apartment or house hunting.”

Vanya glanced up at him, a question on her features that he seemed to be able to read just as easily as when they were younger and she’d shoot him a look from across the table to convey a much deeper message. It was nice how quickly they’d synced up this way of communicating again. 

“Well, not  _ murder,”  _ he frowned. “I can’t believe you assumed  _ that.  _ Well, okay, it makes a lot of sense, given what I’ve told you, but I was specifically referring to bribery. And maybe a little maiming, but nothing that'd be too permanent.”

She shot him a reproachful look, making him look down guiltily and tuck his hands into his pocket. He looked somewhat like a kicked puppy at the one look alone, and, for some reason, it occurred to her just then that Five might have been  _ with _ somebody when he’d been gone all those years. 

When the thought comes to her, she pauses walking, starting to hyperventilate. Five gently reaches for her, but she can feel the dizzy feeling she’d gotten when he’d finally taken her from Home coming back. 

“What’s wrong?” Five whispered. 

She stumbled, and he gripped her arms. “Vanya?” 

It was shocking, that even though his voice was much deeper, that he was clearly a much older man in front of her, he sounded just like the scared young boy who’d been by her side all of the years she’d been locked in a small room. 

Even more shocking was how it comforted her more than anything else he’d done already. Maybe it was that on some level she couldn’t believe that it was really him, that he’d been some trick by Reginald or he’d been the result of losing control of her mind completely. 

She knew, without a doubt, that this was her best friend, and it reassured her that he wouldn’t let her go through anything awful again. But he’d likely still move on from her at one point, and the thought made her unbearably sad. 

When she wrapped her arms around Five, he didn’t comment at all. In fact, he sighed in relief, muttering the same promises he’d been saying the past few days. She wouldn’t despair that he’d leave her behind right now because, at the very least, he was with her now. And even if he did leave her behind, at least she knew that he would never completely avoid her. Five was her best friend, and she had no doubt that he would keep being her friend forever. 

“Okay, we’ll get food and then search for apartments and then we’ll spend the time in between places at a hotel. That way you don’t have to be cooped up in that house anymore, okay?” Five groaned as he remembered something. “Also, you have to see the doctor again. It’s actually the last day you have to take those meds. If you feel like you want to get on anything else though, like if it’s too much right now, can you try to tell the doctor?”

She nodded, holding his hand. 

“Alright, let’s go there.”

At the appointment Vanya spoke enough that the doctor said, staring at Five warily for confirmation, that she could move to weekly appointments. Vanya shot a look in Five’s direction before he could start protesting, knowing that this doctor had already had to deal with him enough. Five sighed, nodding his assent, and she offered him a quick, grateful smile that made his eyes soften. 

It was over much quicker than the others had gone, and she hoped it meant her progress was going well. The doctor commented that she was looking healthier and that obviously the fact that she was starting to speak again was a wonderful sign, so it left her with much more hope than the appointments before. 

After they ate, Vanya must have looked tired enough that Five offered to just take her to the hotel then. Before he even suggested that he could look around while she slept, she dragged him to the bed, tucking them both in as they had before. She got the idea that Five hadn’t really slept much until she was enforcing a strict schedule with him, and he wouldn’t have even then if she didn’t send him the pleading look, hoping his guilt would lead to him somewhat taking care of himself. 

Before they could fall asleep though, Vanya gently pressed a small kiss to the corner of Five’s mouth. Neither of them acknowledged it, but she could hear both his heart and her own pounding beside them. Above them, the plaster on the ceiling cracked a little, and she wondered if the hotel’s foundation was struggling at all, confused by the damage. Five didn’t comment on it though, and she realized that he was already drifting, exhausted. In his sleep, he tugged her closer, wrapping himself protectively around her, caging her in his arms away from the door, always putting himself as a buffer from harm, even in his unconscious state. Vanya took in the assuring feeling it brought her, smiling softly. 

“Thank you for taking care of me,” she said, knowing that he wouldn’t hear it and feeling just a small pang of guilt that she’d spoken when he wouldn’t have known it. “I really love you, you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!! 💕💕💕 I’m going to try to avoid saying when this’ll get updated just because I tend to always get upset when I fail to get something done by that time. However, I will say that it will most likely not be done within the next week because I’m about to finish up a class and will be super busy starting tomorrow!!! 
> 
> When my class is over, my goal is to reply to all comments, get a few WIPs finished, get a few WIPS posted, and have all my fic-mas fics out!!!! For fic-mas, I’ll have 25 fiveya fics (varying in rating) and then 5 fics for each of the following ships- Vanyallison, Alluther, Benfiveya, Benkliego, Horrance, and Kliego. (Most of the fics for the ships outside of fiveya will be E, but I’ll probably add SOME G/T/M in there bc I know not everybody likes to read smut!!)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thanks to JjDoggieS for making sure I updated💕💕💕 this is now 80% done and I hope to finish it soon!!!

When he ran a washcloth over her body, she shivered underneath him. He tried to ignore the way her nipples pebbled, shifting uncomfortably and hoping she didn’t notice. “Does that feel okay?” Five mumbled, trying to hold conversation with her, hoping to encourage her to speak more. At the very least, he wanted her speaking to not stop.

“Yes, it feels good,” she moaned. When he heard the sound of her voice, he snapped his gaze to her, feeling his cock twitch and knowing she saw it this time, based on where she was looking. “Keep doing it.”

Gulping, he followed her command, watching the way her eyes fluttered shut. When she reached for him, guiding his hands, he-

Woke up. 

Guiltily, he pulled away from Vanya, groaning as he brushed up against her in the process and choosing to blink away to the hotel bathroom instead.

He could hear her easily in the next room, comforting himself in that he’d be able to hear her if she needed him at all. It didn’t help his guilt that immediately after thinking that he slipped his hands into his boxers, clutching the bathroom counter and trying not to think too deeply into what he was doing. She would likely be disgusted by this, but he didn’t want to be in bed beside her when he was having those thoughts. Taking care of the problem before he laid down beside her was the only thing he  _ could  _ do. 

His mind drifted back to the dream a few minutes in, and he could feel shame fill his stomach as he came almost immediately after thinking it. 

When he cleaned up and trudged back to the bed, laying down beside her, she blearily opened her eyes, “Five? Where did you go?”

“Just had to use the bathroom. Don’t worry about it, V.” 

“I’m cold,” she mumbled. “Can you get closer?”

“Of course.” When he started to move closer to her slowly, she made a face before throwing her arms around him, snuggling up to his chest. 

“Don’t go,” she told him.

“I won’t, V. Promise.”

She grabbed his pinky, and he realized why, both amused by the gesture and feeling a pang in his chest and the urge to protect her. When their pinkies looped, he said, “I  _ pinky  _ promise I won’t go.” 

When she pressed her forehead to his own, seeming to think hard on something, he could feel his own heartbeat starting to race. “Five?” 

“Yeah, V?”

She glanced down at his lips, and he could feel his face begin to heat, knowing his eyes were wide when she met them again. “Five, I want-”

“What do you want, Vanya?” He struggled to not stare at her lips as well, wanting to close the infinitely small distance-

Plaster rained down on them from the ceiling. He glanced up, brows furrowed in confusion. “Did you notice that happened earlier tonight? I wonder if something is wrong with the hotel-”

He stopped immediately when he heard her crying. “Vanya?” Five asked, panicked. 

“My head hurts,” she muttered, face scrunching up. “Everything is so loud.”

“Do you want me to get you some Tylenol or something?”

More plaster fell. “Make it stop,” she whimpered, eyes shutting tightly.

“What do you need, Vanya? I’ll help you, just tell me-”

When she opened her eyes, they were glowing.

* * *

Vanya trembled in his arms as he carried her to the mansion. Every sob that left her throat made him grit his teeth together, forcing himself not to say anything and hurt her more with the sound of his voice. 

However, when he got to the mansion, he couldn’t contain his anger any longer, seeing Pogo upon entering. 

“Did you know?” He was shaking, tears filling his vision. 

“Master Five-”

“Did you know what he  _ did  _ to her?” She gripped his shoulder, like she was trying to tell him something. 

Pogo nodded, eyes filled with remorse.

“Why?” 

Clearly, Pogo understood what he was asking. “Miss Vanya was a danger-”

He set her down, cutting Pogo off, “She was a  _ child.”  _

“She could have gotten hurt.” 

Five scoffed, quipping, “Right, and she was just perfectly safe in that cage?” 

“She could have hurt the others as well. When you left, she had a fit-”

The realization that it was his leaving that had set her off in the first place hit him like a pile of bricks, and he winced. 

Recovering as quickly as he could, his voice was low, lethally calm, “You let her suffer for how many years? For a single  _ fit?”  _ Five spat the last word, sickened that it would be used to describe an entirely appropriate response to whatever had happened to her. He didn’t know the circumstances, but whatever she had done was warranted. Every experience they’d had in this shitty household informed him of this. Vanya wouldn’t have done  _ anything _ to intentionally harm them, yet they’d let her suffer for  _ years.  _

Though he felt more remorse than he had in his entire existence, knowing he was partially responsible, it didn’t matter if he’d left her behind. Five had been a child as well, and (even if he’d made an arrogant, moronic decision to run away without at least bringing her with him) the blame should not be put on him. “You knew that he did this to her, and you did  _ nothing.”  _

“Her powers-”

“What the fuck even  _ are _ her powers, if you think they’re such a danger? Such a danger to fuck her up beyond repair?”

Pogo’s lips sealed into a thin line, but he couldn’t focus on that, seeing Vanya’s eyes fill with tears, realizing that he’d not even considered his words in his anger. He reached for her, but she flinched away. 

Woodenly, he asked, “What are her powers?”

They walked to Father’s office. Vanya followed him, which he would have been happy for had she not been staring at him so warily. Pogo wordlessly handed him Reginald’s journal, and Five blinked “It’s all in here, then?” 

Pogo nodded. 

“The medicine was to suppress them, wasn’t it?”

“Master Five-”

“Do not go near her ever again,” Five said quietly. “You’re very lucky to leave with your life. Though if she ever wants otherwise, you will not.”

When Pogo left them behind, Vanya asked, “Do you really think I’ll never be able to get better?”

He sat down heavily on the desk of the man who’d ruined both of their lives. “I think that after what you went through, it wouldn’t be abnormal. You’re strong, Vanya, but you also went through something unimaginable. You interacted with nobody for over ten years.” 

She glanced down. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”

“No, V. I don’t.” 

“Really?”

“Of course not.”

She reached for him, and he hugged her without complaint. “I don’t want to see what’s in the journal,” she announced abruptly. 

He raised his brows in confusion.

“You can read it. I imagine you’d want to know, for ensuring I don’t hurt myself or whatever else. But whatever is in the contents of it, I never want to know, Five. Can you promise you won’t tell me?”

Dazedly, he nodded. “Yes, I promise.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“And Five?”

“Yeah?”

“I never want to be in this house ever again.”

When she grabbed onto him tighter, he realized she was silently asking to blink her away, and he did, journal in hand. He wouldn’t ever make her go back there after that, especially when she’d specifically asked. As they landed back in the hotel, she kept a firm grip on him. 

“Are you okay?” Five asked her, crouching down a little to make sure she could keep eye contact with him. “Because whatever you need-”

She kissed him, and all thoughts left his mind completely, nearly blacking out from shock. When she pulled away, he realized he hadn’t moved his lips at all. He wondered if it was appropriate to ask if he could try again, but he didn’t voice the thought. 

Vanya walked to the bed. “I am going to sleep. I don’t want you to worry about me, but I need to be unconscious for a bit.”

“Fair enough,” he breathed, touching his lips because they felt like they were tingling. “If you need anything at all-”

“I’ll tell you,” she assured. “Actually, can you lay down beside me? While I sleep?”

“Of course.”

“And I’m about to ask you a very strange request, but humor me.”

“Absolutely, anything.” He had the power to time travel or go anywhere in the world in seconds. Whatever she asked of him, he would do it. 

“Do you know the song ‘You Are My Sunshine’?” 

He raised his brows. “Not the words, but I think I know how it sounds.”

She blinked, “That’s actually better, oddly. Could you hum it?”

Five nodded, having no idea how it would help her in any manner at all but willing to do it just because she requested. When he sat down beside her, she pressed herself close to him, and he didn’t comment on it, relishing in the closeness himself. 

As soon as he started to hum, she teared up, and he paused, waiting until she asked him to continue to do so. Though he was sure he probably got some points wrong, she didn’t comment at all, reaching out to touch his fingers.

“Your hands are warm,” she told him softly, voice almost reverent. “They’re  _ warm.”  _

He squeezed her hands, “Do you want to tell me why you asked me to do that? You don’t have to-”

“Five, I just realized something.” Her voice sounded strangled.

“What, V?”

“You were the music box.”

“Come again?” 

“The music box… God, sorry, I must sound completely-”

“Don’t worry,” he cut her off gently. “Just… elaborate. If you’d like. Don’t worry how it sounds.” 

“P-Pogo once gave me a music box,” she said, and he contemplated going back to kill Pogo just for the way she struggled to say his name. However, it would mean leaving her, and he’d never do that for the rest of his life, not unless she asked. “I thought I’d broken it.”

Tears started to form more fully, trickling down her cheeks. “And I used to see y-you. Except you never aged.”

He squeezed her hand again. “That’s alright, Vanya.”

“You used to s-s-ing-” She cut herself off with a sob. 

“Just tell me what you’re comfortable with, okay?”

“I need to say this.”

He nodded. 

“I used to hold your hands, but… they were always too cold and rough. You’d always sing the song when I held them. The music box… you were never there. I was winding it up every time I heard you sing.”

He felt a stabbing feeling in his chest. “That’s why it upset you to see it, then?” 

Weakly, she nodded. 

“Vanya, can I tell you something?”

She glanced up. “Yeah.”

“Remember what I said? About living in a time after the world had ended?”

“Yes.”

He gulped, hating that he had to verbally acknowledge something he’d known for many years, but wanting to help Vanya know what she was experiencing was normal. There had been many moments like this for him. “I had a companion. Sort of. Her name was Dolores.”

“So, you weren’t alone?”

“No, Vanya, I was alone.” The next words tasted like ash in his mouth, “Dolores was a mannequin.”

_ “Oh.” _

“Yeah. And… everything about her... I guess subconsciously… who I really wanted to be there with-” He cleared his throat, jaw locking. “She was like you, in a lot of regards. I think I wanted her to be you, and it helped me survive. Even though she couldn’t actually speak, I could still have somebody to hold onto… Remember when we were young, and you’d have those awful nightmares?” At her nod, he continued, “She helped mine. Holding onto her at night while I slept was the only thing that kept me alive. I think I needed to have touch the way you needed sound.” 

Her head rested on his shoulder, “I’m glad she kept you alive.”

“I love you,” he blurted, immediately regretting saying that when she was in so much pain, experiencing so  _ much. _

“I love you too.” She leaned against his chest. There was not any unease when she said it; her tone was matter-of-fact. He wondered if in that case she meant it in a familial way, but, as soon as the thought even came to mind (making him wonder if part of her powers included mind reading elements), she said, “I’m in love with you. I hope that’s okay.”

His voice sounded more strangled than awestruck, and he hoped she thought nothing of it, imagining she would likely probably have had to notice, “Yes, that’s alright with me.” 

* * *

Soon after, they had their own place, sleeping in their own bed. Each night she tucked against his side, he reminded himself that even after everything they’d been through, they could still experience something good. 

The apocalypse never came. 

After a few months when it still hadn’t happened, he could surmise the original cause. He slept beside her every night, with no judgement at all. 

She had not been the one in the wrong for causing it, after all. 

It was easy for him to find forgiveness. They never went back to the mansion, and he didn’t try to offer to see his siblings, wanting him to approach them first. However, now that she was getting better, he didn’t find that he could blame them any longer. 

There was only one person to blame, truly, and he was already dead.

* * *

Their home was a safe place. He watched her progress plenty, but there were of course bad days as well. 

Today was one of them. 

She stared up at him guiltily when he got back from grabbing some groceries for them. Vanya had asked him if she could stay back, and he’d agreed, figuring she’d wanted a little bit of alone time. Seeing her now, he could figure out why she’d wanted it. 

Crouching down, he picked up the canned foods that she hadn’t opened delicately. “Are you okay?” Five asked, already knowing the answer. One glance at the cans informed him they were expired. Before she could vomit on the floor, he blinked over and grabbed a trash can, wordlessly handing it to her. 

He rubbed her back gently while she vomited up the expired canned foods, soothingly murmuring to her. 

“I was worried that they’d leave me in there, and I’d never eat again,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry-”

“It’s okay, Vanya. I understand.” And he did. The reason those cans had even been in their home was because he’d hoarded them, afraid that the apocalypse would happen again and they’d both starve. He wouldn’t judge her for this at all; he’d be a hypocrite to do so. “Do you still feel sick?”

She nodded. 

“Okay, do you need a glass of water? Or to lie down?” 

When she nodded again, he assumed she meant both. He carried her to their bedroom, depositing her onto their bed before teleporting to the kitchen to grab her a cup of water. As soon as he came back, she gripped his arm, not relaxing until he promised he wouldn’t go. 

He rubbed her back while she sipped the water, leaning on his side. They both knew that she wasn’t the only one who needed the assurance of touch, but she politely said nothing. 

After a while, she asked him if would go with her to take a bath. They’d not had sex yet, just kissing frequently, but she still always asked him to bathe her. He didn’t object to it at all, grateful that she trusted him enough to even request it. Likely, if anyone was to ever find out about the practice, they’d raise their brows, but he didn’t give a fuck about anybody else’s opinions besides Vanya’s anyways. 

Five carried her to the tub, grabbing a bar of soap and some shampoo while she stripped down. He was pretty much desensitized to seeing her naked, but he did enjoy seeing her start to gain weight. She didn’t look so fragile anymore, and she was soft when he scrubbed her skin. 

Her hand clutched his arm. “Yes, V?” Five asked, pausing in his movements, wiping his soapy hands on his trousers absentmindedly.

“You won’t go?” 

He wordlessly handed her his pinkie, smiling as she looped her own with it. 

“Can you get in the bath with me?” Vanya asked timidly.

Five nodded, not trying to make a big deal out of it when she was clearly embarrassed by the request, shrugging off his clothes quickly and climbing into the tub, moving her to where she was leaning against him. “This okay?”

She nodded. 

“Okay, good.” 

He cleared his throat quickly before cleaning her thighs. When he reached in between her legs, she let out a sharp moan. Neither of them commented on it, mutually understanding not to do so. 

Five pulled the washcloth away from her when he was done, cleaning himself off after to the best of his ability when she was leaning against him. “Does your stomach still hurt?”

“Not really. How long does food poisoning last?”

“It’s over quick, actually, but usually not this quick. If you feel better though, I’m happy. We’ll just stay in for the rest of the day though. Maybe watch a movie or something. Whatever you wanna do.”

“I love you.” 

He knew why she said it, and it made a tender smile begin to form across his features, though he wished she would just ask him to say it when she wanted to hear it. “I love you too, Vanya.”

* * *

Five had always wondered if he would even have a life that came  _ after.  _ There had been no purpose to his life for years, other than stopping the apocalypse. Now that the Commission was completely gone and couldn’t force an apocalypse to happen, that he knew the cause of the first, he didn’t have to worry about it any longer. 

At first it was daunting. He’d never had a life that he didn’t have to worry about world-ending things. Even when he’d been Reginald’s soldier, he’d been told stories of the apocalypse. 

He’d never lived a life that didn’t involve survival, and he didn’t quite understand it. 

But he grew to like it. 

Vanya read books frequently, claiming that she’d had no education during the times she’d been locked away. It was frustrating, that she seemed to think poorly of herself for this, blaming herself for something that was not her fault at all. He wished he could say how proud he was of her, how much he loved her, and know that it would be enough for her. She was much more wonderful than she gave herself credit for, and he simply would never accumulate the vocabulary required to explain how proud he was of her. There didn’t seem to be any words in any language he knew that could adequately describe it. 

However, there was one thing that always did help her when she started to spiral, so he hummed to her every night before she fell asleep and every time she started to get the panicked look in her eyes. 

Sound was a gift to her, and it was not one he would ever take away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!! I will try to have this one done by New Years!!!💕


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thank you to JjdoggieS, ellaphunt19, Chevalier_Barthelemy, and CarpeDiemForLife for inspiring me so much while I wrote this!!!! I am so thankful also for all of those who left kudos, comments, and bookmarks. This fic was really special to me, and I’m so glad that it resonated with some of you guys as well. 💕💕💕💕💕

“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you didn’t find me?” Vanya asked him one day, brows furrowed from concentrating on her task of levitating a coffee mug. Their purpose in doing so was for her to gain more  _ control  _ over her powers. What had caused the apocalypse before lay unspoken between them, but they both knew that if she didn’t practice with them it would happen again. Any time she asked him to take a break, he did so without any question at all. Most of the time, the lessons were cut short by himself, even if she started rambling and saying that she wanted to keep going. 

Lightly, she set the cup down in front of Five, not allowing the glass to shatter at all. “I imagine I’d be dead, right?”

Five didn’t speak, but she knew he heard her based on the slight flaring of his nostrils. 

“And so would the rest of the world…”

There. It was said. She’d acknowledged what another version of herself had done, and there was no way to go back from it. 

Unimpressed, Five grabbed the cup and silently blinked over to the still brewing coffee, filling and gulping down the mug completely before he deigned to respond. “Yes, I imagine that’s correct.”

“Five… doesn’t it make more sense to k-”

“Do not finish that sentence,” he snarled, a look entirely unfamiliar to her in his pale  _ eyes _ . “I do not want to hear you suggest…”

He cleared his throat, eyes flashing before flooding with tears. “Just don’t… don’t talk like that. I couldn’t… God, Vanya, please, for me, just-”

In all the years she had known him, Vanya had never seen him at a loss for words. “I won’t,” she mumbled, glancing down. “You haven’t even thought about it, have you?”

“No. Can we please change the subject?”

She touched his arm, “Okay.”

When she climbed into his lap, it was about comforting him, knowing that he’d done so much to comfort her and wanting to do anything she could in turn. He buried his head against her neck, inhaling in sharp pants. As her fingers tangled through his hair, trying to soothe him, he whimpered. 

“I’m sorry, you know,” Vanya told him. “I don’t mean to keep talking about it, but I’m so sorry that you went through-”

“You didn’t cause it,” Five interrupted. 

She blinked. “Yes, I-”

“A  _ version  _ of you caused it, yes, but, if you’ll notice, humanity still exists. Why would you ever blame yourself for something that you never even did?”

“But I-”

“V, there’s likely a version of me out there that k-” He cut himself off, sighing loudly. “I’m not mad at you, for what I went through. Because  _ you  _ never did anything to me, and, even if the world ended today and you were the cause, I don’t think I could possibly blame you for it.” 

“Why not?”

“Because it’s  _ you.”  _ He sighed. “Listen, I know that I went through a lot, don’t get me wrong, but you did too. I couldn’t ever k-...  _ hurt  _ you after all you suffered. Even if you hadn’t… I don’t think I could. I might have  _ thought  _ about it, but the world ending was just as much my f-”

“Don’t say that,” she hissed. “It wasn’t. In any way at all.”

“The world’s still standing, right?”

Sealing her lips into a thin line, she nodded. 

“Then it’s not your fault either.”

* * *

Over the next three years, Vanya learned that she didn’t always  _ want  _ to speak. Five never forced it out of her after he realized that it was comforting for her sometimes, and there would sometimes be weeks at a time where she said less than a hundred words. Most of the time, Five filled those silences, figuring out what she needed by her hand gestures and her facial expressions. When she listened to him chatter about his new theories (he had grown an interest in traveling through dimensions, though he assured her that if he ever went beyond just theorizing, he would absolutely bring her along, causing her to stare at him disapproving for a few moments before he relented and admitted that it would likely always stay as a theory), she’d often lay her head on his shoulder. Usually, he tended to only ramble about them while they were in bed together, understanding that it acted more as a way to fall asleep to her than a topic of conversation she actually fully understood. (A lot of it she  _ could  _ figure out, but she contented herself more with studying music and literature. She was writing a book now, a memoir of sorts.)

Eventually, she got control of the powers, remembering all the times she’d heard storms above her in her entrapment. Though Five had kept his promise in never forcing her to read through Reginald’s journal, she could easily deduce that he’d known, the entire time.

* * *

“I’ve decided that I’ve forgiven our siblings completely,” Five told her, drinking sips of coffee. He’d gotten somewhat better at cooking, in that the toast and bacon in front of her wasn’t scorched. While she’d never had much of an appetite when she was younger, she was always hungry now, stealing food from Five’s plate regularly, which never seemed to bother him (even though she always tried to be sneaky about it, snatching bites of food while he focused on his equations, though she sometimes thought he only did it because it amused him immensely to see her steal from him). 

Vanya realized what he was saying, and she rolled her eyes, lips curling upwards, “I’m pretty sure that you should have done that a while ago.”

He raised his brows bemusedly. 

“I’m just saying that if  _ I  _ have already forgiven them, it probably would have made more sense if you had too.”

“I don’t see why you’d forgive them so easily.”

“Because the person that caused me the most torment,  _ deliberately,  _ is long gone.”

She grabbed his coffee from his hand, drinking it to swallow down the taste of the toast she’d stolen a few minutes ago.

* * *

She didn’t think she’d ever be an expert at her violin. At one point in her life, she’d dreamed of mastering the instrument, of being the concertmaster of the New York Phil or the Chicago Phil or even of the Icarus Theatre in her city. It hadn’t been a very realistic dream, she supposed, but she’d thought it was a relatively  _ fair  _ one to ask of the universe, given that the rest of her family had been given gifts unimaginable to most people in the world. One could be talented and still ordinary, she had thought. 

Well, she wasn’t ordinary anymore, but she wasn’t talented, either. 

Five could sense that she was growing frustrated with her progress, and, one day, when the plaster on the ceiling had started to shower down on them while she attempted a Mozart violin concerto, he’d softly commanded, “Stop.” Until Five had said the word, Vanya hadn’t realized how anxious she was getting, how every small noise sounded like explosions in her ears. Five had said it softly enough that it didn’t cause her physical pain, but she knew that if he’d spoken at a regular volume, she would have been on the floor whimpering for the next hour. 

That very occurrence had happened last month after all. 

When she sat down beside him, burying her forehead into the crook of his neck, he made no noise at all. Not until she softly asked him to sing the song. It was somewhat a way to torment herself, she supposed. If Five knew how much it made her heart feel like it was twisting until it deformed itself, he would never do it, but she didn’t tell him for that reason. Even though it caused her pain, the pain brought her clarity, grounded her to the reality that she wasn’t in Home any longer. 

Vanya would never be at Home ever again. Five would never allow her to go back to that place, would never allow her to suffer the way Reginald had. Though she’d never considered the place  _ happy,  _ she’d considered it  _ reality.  _ It was where she’d accepted that she’d one day die. In the week that she’d had nobody visit her at all, she’d even accepted that she would never see another soul again. 

“I will never be normal,” Vanya told Five, sniffling loudly enough that he wrapped his arm around her. She wondered if it was annoying to him to always have to clean snot and tears on his clothes and then she wondered if it was a relief to him that somebody cried on him regularly because it meant that he wasn’t completely alone in the world any longer. 

Five made a small noise. “Why do you  _ want  _ to be normal?”

When she glanced up at him, seeing her reflection in his pupils, she knew the look she gave him was one of incredulity. 

He snorted. “Yeah, I suppose if we had been normal, we wouldn’t have had to deal with any of this shit, huh?”

“No, I don’t suppose we would have.” 

It was odd how quickly the tense, unbreathable air could change to something light and gentle, but she supposed it was probably due to the fact that his eyes were crinkled, lips twitching, eyebrows raising just a little. When a little laughter spilled from his lips, she couldn’t help but laugh too. She wasn’t sure  _ why  _ they were even laughing, but it felt so good to do that she had no urge to really examine it.

* * *

Music boxes were not allowed in their house. 

Five had been the one to create the rule, and Vanya had swiftly agreed, though she’d raised her brows when he’d made it. The music box really hadn’t been the problem, precisely, but it was an easy thing for Five to fix. She supposed it made sense that he would put the blame on every single music box in the world, and she wasn’t going to argue with it. Not when the sight of them still sent a wave of panic throughout her body. 

Sometimes, though, Vanya would  _ want _ to feel that panic. It wasn’t healthy by any means at all, and she knew that Five would probably start going into some long rant (that would feel like it was copy and pasted from one of the weird self-help books he sometimes read when she started getting bad off) if he knew what she did when he was gone for longer than a few hours. She didn’t really think anybody would advise seeking out something that caused panic to rise within her, but, then again, she figured it was probably  _ somewhat  _ normal for traumatized people to seek things out like this. 

Or, maybe, she was bad at being traumatized. She didn’t know. 

All she  _ did  _ know was that sometimes Five would leave her alone for a few hours, going out to get groceries or visit with some of the siblings that had actually reached out to him. That sometimes he would be gone for nearly ten hours at a time. That the second she knew two hours had passed, she would drive to the little antique shop they’d stopped by years before. 

It wasn’t music boxes that she tried to find though. 

No, her chest would compress for an entirely different reason as she stared at the dent-in portion of the wall, where the store owner had clearly never bothered to fix. 

Maybe it was a little odd that Five breaking a random music box for her stood out as the sweetest thing anybody had ever done for her before, but she cherished and held onto that memory with as tight of a grip as she could manage. 

At first, when she’d looked at the spot, she’d feel the same suffocation she’d felt when she had first seen that music box in the store. This was the part that would cause Five to get all grumbly. 

But, then she’d imagined Five grumbling to her for trying to do something like that, and she’d think of the moment he’d broken the music box. He hadn’t even fully understood why it had upset her, but he’d been willing to do whatever it took to make her upset go away. 

Then Vanya would drive back to their place, and she’d think of all the pain that she had gone through. And she’d think of all the times that she’d been trapped in Home, and how she’d once resigned herself to live there forever. 

But it wouldn’t matter. She  _ actually _ had a home now. 

So, she’d drive back to it, open the door, walk inside, and go forward. And it was so _simple_ to go forward when one had enough space to do so. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 😭😭😭😭😭😭 I am finally done with this fic, and I always get stupid sentimental when my WIPs are done!!!! I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you to everybody who left kudos, bookmarks, and comments!!! This fic meant so much to me, and I’m so conflicted about being done with it. On one hand, I KNOW the story is over now, but on the other I’m going to miss writing it!!!! 😭😭😭😭 
> 
> I had always intended for this one to have a happy ending, and I’m so sorry if y’all had some angst about it along the way LMAO!!!!! Also, I know there was never any actual smut, but know that they were boning for quite a while. 😔✊
> 
> Ahhh!!!! Okay!!!! If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading!!!! 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕


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